Twinkle
by Marlowe97
Summary: ...and the stars twinkle in the nightly sky. - It's post-7.10 and every last shred of Dean's support system is either dead or gone. Sam wants to give something special to his brother, something from the heart.


**Title:** Twinkle  
><strong>Author:<strong>**marlowe78**  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG 13  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Dean, Sam  
><strong>Word count:<strong> 2.313  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> set post 7:10, so it might be good to be up to date.  
><strong>Warnings:<strong>Language, I guess. Dean being the Dean of s7...

**Summary:** ...and the stars twinkle in the nightly sky

* * *

><p>an:

Written for A Winter/Holiday themed Dean-focused h/c comment-fic meme  
>on <strong>hoodie_time<strong> for a by **nwspaprtaxis: **

_It's post-7.10 and every last shred of Dean's support system is either dead or gone._

_Sam knows his brother's having a bad time and is barely coping so he shows his love and appreciation by giving Dean something or doing something special for Dean's birthday. And it's not something he gives out of default as the amulet was. It's something he puts thought, effort, and love into... doing it specifically with Dean in mind and FOR Dean._

* * *

><p>It's a key-ring.<p>

Just a simple key-ring, made of leather and some metal, yeah, and Sam really thought about this a lot and put some effort into it, sure. He worked on it, hard, thought about how he'd do it and when to gift it, thought beforehand what the hell he could get for his brother, what would be right, what could be right.

A night with an expensive call-girl got canceled out immediately after looking at his then-sleeping brother, worn out and so much thinner than he used to be. Worn down by grief and alcohol, and if Sam didn't know, hadn't witnessed over and over and over again how much of a fight it was for Dean to get up every morning, he'd say there was no trace left of the larger-than-life hero he grew up idolizing, loving and resenting in not even close to equal measures.

He knows the hero is still there, still living in that skinny shell, hiding in those bruised-looking eyes and every now-and-then, it's letting Sam catch a glimpse of it.

And those are the moments a sharp pain slices through Sam's insides, a longing for the brother he knows could still be there full-time if life hadn't fucked up everything, if God, angels, friends and foes alike hadn't kicked Dean to the curb repeatedly, chewed him up, spit him out and stamped him into the ground.

Those are the moments Sam wants the snarky, inappropriate and skirt-chasing man back who used to drive him crazy and up the walls and into indulgent smiles and moments of mad giggles when he thought the world was too dark to go on.

Sam scoffs, in those moments, at how minor that darkness had been, at how naive his younger self had been then, but he wants to give something back. He wants to see Dean smile, wants to see him be silly, he wants to fucking smile again, but more than that, he wants Dean to be happy. If only for a moment, only for a short time.

He wants to return the gift Dean had always given so freely, but he lacks in the silly-department and his attempted jokes fall flat with an audible _thud_where they lie pityingly in the shallow puddles of the road, leaving a bitter taste of failure.

Sam isn't Dean.

He never wanted to be Dean, but he thinks now that it would be easier if he were. If he wasn't so much _Sam_ and a bit more _Dean_, maybe he'd know the right thing to do.

Yeah. Right. As if.

But maybe he'd look less in-over-his-head, a bit more confident, a tiny bit more like a hero capable of taking on the world's villains and looking good at doing so.

He isn't. And he can't be. He's always gonna be Sam, and one drunken night he'd figured something out, something Bobby had tried to tell him, more than once in his scruffy, caring but rough way of his.

If there is one thing Dean has always been proud of, it's seeing Sam grow up the man he is today.

If there is one single thing Dean feels he did right, it's raising Sam to be who he is now.

And if that's true – Sam knows that it is – then he could only ever give a perfect gift if it was completely him, completely Sam.

So the search for the perfect Sam-gift to give, the perfect Sam-thing to show Dean how much he loves, appreciates and yes, fuck, yes, how much he still wants him around and needs him in that fucked-up way they have was born was on.

Though once upon a time Dean might have appreciated the call-girl or a night in a strip-club, Sam knows it isn't the same anymore. He doesn't want to think about his brother's sex-habits, never really wanted to, ever, but it's pretty hard to ignore the fact that Dean hadn't been away over night these last... shit, when was the last time? Months? Years? Sam doesn't want to think about sex much. He's got his own bag of issues with that now, thanks very much, but it seems just wrong that Dean of all people apparently has lost all urge to flee into a woman's arms like he used to.

So, different idea.

There was nothing you could buy that was even close to fitting. Some things would've been cool with his brother, Sam knows, but they wouldn't fit with what Sam wanted to say.

How do you say "Please don't leave me alone, please stay, please come back and pick up the fight with me" without actually saying it? Without sounding like a cheap Christmas-card?

How can you say that in a way that wouldn't make Dean scoff and dismiss it, laugh about it in that scary, artificial way he now has and clap him on the back, saying "I'm right here, Sammy, dunno whatcha talking about."

And then, one day, watching Dean absentmindedly flick the set of Impala-keys between his finger, a silent _click-click_like a call for contact, a connection made to the last thing that was binding Dean and Sam to the places they'd come from... that day, Sam had known.

And he'd gone to work.

*SPN*SPN*SPN*

"'s just a key-ring" Sam says after a while, after he can't take the silence anymore. After seeing his brother staring into the little box for what feels like hours, blinking now and then and running his tongue nervously over his lips. "'s not much."

He knows it's a lie. Knows it is a lot, was a lot of work. He's lying, trying to cover up that awkwardness just because he can't stand that weird, blank look in his brother's eyes, feeling something is about to happen and fearing it. He's so fucking scared about what might happen, scared about what Dean will do with it, if he will understand what he wants, needs, to say. If he'll get how much work it has been to get it together like that or if he'll dismiss it as "Girly stuff, Samantha." even if Sam knows he doesn't mean it, will be saying it only because... well, whatever fucked-up reasons Dean has for being an asshole about things like this.

But Dean's quiet, swallowing with an audible _snick_in the throat when he takes the small item out of the box.

It's a leather-patch, about the size of a matchbook, maybe a little more. In it, Sam had cut two devil's traps surrounded by fire – yes, the design of their tattoos; sue him for being a little emotional at that time – with a hot knife, the lines inked dark later on. The rim is stitched with a string of cloth, narrow stitches that are nearly invisibly but still frame the work perfectly. It looks pretty cool, Sam will say that himself.

It has a sturdy metal-ring-thing for putting the keys on, silver-plated because pure silver would be too soft to withstand any hard tugs.

The ring is attached to a piece of a narrow clasp from a belt, a strip of leather riveted in a loop around the clasp. Not any clasp, though. Not from any belt.

Sam had long ago found the trench-coat in the trunk, never knowing how to handle the small pang of sadness it always provoked. He'd kinda liked the angel, and he hadn't liked losing one more of their friends. Still, Sam could live with Cas being gone. What he didn't want to live with was the effect his death had on Dean. The loss of trust into anything but Sam, sometimes even Sam as well. His sadness, his stupid guilt, his lack of drive and longing for oblivion.

So he'd taken a piece of that coat and tried to create it into something that would always stay with Dean without looking as silly as carrying a used trench-coat around would. The blanky-style is unbefitting a man like his brother.

Sam is kinda hoping Dean realizes what it's meant to be.

A connection.

The whole keyring is made from connections, binding the last threads together in the silly hope that they will stick, that they will be enough to remind without weighing down.

The rivet Sam used for the leather is made from a bullet for the Colt that had been rolling inside the trunk, and he'd been careful so the marking wasn't disturbed.

The knife Sam had carved the design with? The demon-killing knife.

The little threads he used for the stitches? Sam had cut them from one of Bobby's hats.

And finally, the ink he used for making the cuts look dark? No ink at all.

Sam hopes his blood will stay in the leather just fine, without having to renew it.

*SPN*SPN*SPN*

"So...?"

Dean still isn't saying anything, but at least he stopped looking at the little trinket like it's from the moon.

"It's for... well, for the keys." He doesn't say what keys, and Dean doesn't ask. There's only one set of keys Sam might be talking about anyway.

On the bed, Dean shifts a little, his hands trailing the lines of the devil's traps in the leather, stroking the threads and smoothing the buckle like he wants to warm it up. Sam bites his lips. He doesn't think Dean hates his gift, but it's getting a bit ...weird.

His brother makes a fist around the leather, encloses it in his palm and wraps his other hand around the first, biting the nails of his thumbs. Just when Sam wants to ask more, wants to try for a bad joke to get rid of the tension Dean's eyes snap up to him, huge and pleading and kinda liquid. He's squeezing the key-ring, fists now against his chin and Dean looks so young, all of a sudden. So fucking young and Sam has to restrain himself from running over and squeezing his brother like he is squeezing the little trinket in his hands.

Without warning, Dean's up, brushing past Sam and out the motel-room and Sam is right on his heels. Two lots over, around the motel, there she is. Snow-covered and cold, dark and slick and home and Dean's standing in front of his car, barefoot and in a shirt, stock-still.

The streetlights reflect on the parts of her that are visible, which isn't much because she'd been parked there for a day now and it had been snowing ever since. But she is there, and Sam feels the same pull he had felt when he'd taken the keys back from Sheriff Mills after she drove her over for them.

"Baby..." Dean whispers, touching her door like he can't believe she's there, real and solid. "Baby..."

Sam sees a shiver pass over his brother's back, even from where he's standing, a little off to the side, behind him. A shiver and a shake and Dean's hands come up grab the hair on the back of his head and pull just when his knees buckle and Sam's tough-as-nail older brother sinks to the cold, snow-covered ground. His forehead touches the cold metal and there is a low keening in the air, like a siren far off. It's a sound from the depths of Dean's soul, Sam knows, and he's right there, right over there to catch him when he crumbles completely, crying like Sam hasn't ever seen him cry.

Big, fat tears and snot and hiccup-py breath, shivers like cramps rushing over his whole body. It's completely silent now that the keening has stopped – thank god that stopped! - and Sam is trying his hardest to just hold on. "Shhhhh" is the only thing he can say, and because it sounds right he repeats it, "shhhhhh shhhhh."

The snow falls whisper-soft onto the silent streets, muffling all sounds. The sky is blue-grey from the clouds, mute and still and the people in this town are inside, eating goose and cookies and unwrapping presents, all the while Dean is silently loosing it out in a lonely parking-lot, mashed against the cold steel of his car and cradled by Sam's body so he doesn't topple into the snow.

Right now, Sam isn't doing much more than that, just cradling, not hugging or holding. Just buffering as much cold as he can so his half-dressed idiot-brother isn't turning into a popsicle. "Shhhhh" he says again, but the snow swallows it and the sound doesn't reach further than the two of them.

Dean's crying his heart out, spilling the years of grieve against the metal, into Sam's skin and on the tarmac of the road. That wasn't what Sam wanted to achieve with his gift. Not at all, but it's what he's getting and he'll savor it and hold it and keep it safe for as long as it needs to be.

*SPN*SPN*SPN*

The night is cold and dark and silent, and when the snow stops falling, the stars look down onto a white, downy world.

The brightest of them, the strongest, manage to outshine the light-pollution down on earth, blinking when they spot a figure huddled against a lump of snow.

No, two figures, one wrapped around another, both of them shivering from cold and sorrow and heartache, both feeling lost and alone, together though they are. The larger form is clinging to the smaller like he wants to keep it from slipping away, from shaking apart, chin resting on the head of the other one, eyes open and raised to the sky. Looking right at them, at their cold beauty, and if stars could feel, they'd be touched by the silent plea, the promise, strength and determination and that little bit of faith in those eyes.

But stars don't feel a thing.

~ end


End file.
